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Archive for the 'Creating With Kids' Category

Toddlers benefit from activities that use their fine motor skills and making bracelets and necklaces is fun. However beading with thin wire or string can be frustrating for 3 and 4 year olds. To make it easier for little hands give your 3 or 4 year old a pipe cleaner and a bowl of beads with large holes and watch them thread their own jewellery.

Another great idea is to thread pasta, again to make it easier for small hands cut a straw into a 1 inch long piece, tie your piece of string through the straw and leave a long end. Use the straw like a needle to push through the pasta to help the threading process.

Delight your friends with these yummy and impressive tea cup treats for your next kids party. They are easy to make, and easy to make them unique depending on what you use. We used round plain biscuits topped with icing, marshmallows, lifesavers as handles stuck on with icing and topped with a chocolate freckle.

The kids and adults loved eating them and I enjoyed making them. Great for any age or gender.

Kids of all ages love to dress up. It is never to early to start a dress up box. This is a great gift for a 2 – 6 year old. Purchase a large plastic box and fill it with old clothes, shoes, hats and scarves. You can also buy items like fairy wings, pirate hats, animal masks, funny hats, wigs or doctors clothes. Steer away from giving full costumes to a child such as a super hero suite, as an eclectic mix of items will develop the child’s creativity. Give this gift and watch the child enjoy dressing up in all kids of crazy costumes, over the years items can be added to the box.

Do you have heaps of birthday or christmas cards you do not know what to do with? Why not give them to the kids and get them to practice their weaving skills. This craft is probably suitable for kids aged 4 and up.

For this weaving we used the front of 2 gift cards (similar sizes).

1. On one card I cut slits about 1.5cm apart, leaving a 1cm boarder uncut on each side.

Making your own parachute is a great craft activity for kids and they will then enjoy playing with their creation for hours. All you need is some tissue paper, raffia or string and a cotton reel. As you can see from the photo it is relatively easy to make.

Fold your tissue paper into 4 to make a rectangle shape approximately 20cm x 8cm.

You can decorate your tissue paper in any creative way you like, or leave it plain

Make holes in the 4 corners of the tissue paper.

Cut 4 lengths of string each approximately 30 cm

Tie each length of string to each corner or the tissue paper

Thread all 4 pieces of string through the cotton reel and tie in a knot at the base of the cotton reel.

Now go outside, throw your parachute high in the air and watch it float down!

Have you tried pressing flowers with your kids yet? My daughter and I had a great time picking flowers to press, she enjoyed laying them out between two bits of paper and squashing them within a large book. We then piled up several books on top of the one containing the flowers and waited… 4 weeks later we got creative and made cards and book marks with the flowers we pressed.

The gift card pictured here was made by gluing petals onto a piece of card board to look like a flower – it was simple, fun and a useful gift tag. To make the bookmark we stuck the flowers onto a long piece of card board and then covered the whole thing in clear contact. You can also use the pressed flowers in a collage or picture. For more craft ideas for kids take a look at our craft for kids section of Baby-Patch.com

If you are looking for a fun and creative activity to do with your toddler give this a go. You will need crayons, paper and paint. Get your child to colour the whole piece of paper in different colours of crayons. Make sure he or she covers the whole piece of paper in colour. Then get paint, use black if you want a space / night scene or any other colour if you just want to have fun and make a design. Cover the whole paper again in the paint. You can then wait for the paint to dry and then scratch off the paint with a blunt pencil or if your toddler can not wait, use a blunt instrument (or your fingers) to take off some of the paint and make a design. If your child makes a mistake they can repaint the paper and make a new design! For other creative ideas to do with kids look at Kids craft activities at baby-patch.com